Leave your shoes at the door

Nyeshang Korti Monastery occupies a hilltop east of the main centre. On most days around 4pm, the monastery gathers for prayers and we are invited into the temple to sit with the monks as they chant.

Wide smiles greet us and, barefoot, we step through the orange-curtained door. Intricate patterns of flowers decorate the walls and colourful brocade ties spill from the ceiling, tumbling down carved columns. Incense wafts through the gompa as the monks chant. Cymbals crash, bells ring, drums thunder, and a pair of boys struggle to breathe life into two enormous Tibetan horns.

Two other boys kneeling behind them pass notes to each other in some bizarre re-enactment of my school days. The boys on the horns find their form and we jump, much to the amusement of the congregation. Right now it’s easy to imagine that the snowy peaks of Tibet lurk behind the orange curtain.

Tibetan refugees

The Tashi Palkhiel Tibetan Refugee Settlement overlooks the Seti River in the foothills northwest of Pokhara and is crammed with a myriad of lanes and alleys where hundreds of families attempt to preserve their culture in exile.

Many aid agencies have contributed resources, and there is now a school, clinic, handicraft centre and thriving sense of community spirit.

But it still feels like a refugee camp.

We chat with some monks sweeping a monastery courtyard and they invite us into the gompa. Sky burials are performed on the hill here and there is a wonderful collection of prayer stone cairns.

Outside the settlement, the flood plains are green with millet, and we wait for a bus with five Tibetan teenagers. They are crazy about cricket, basketball, and Western music – especially Madonna – and all hope to go "home to Tibet" one day. A homeland they have never seen.

God’s doorstep

At around 5,300 feet, Sarangkot is probably the best hike around Pokhara. Some of the guidebooks will tell you to walk up all the way from town. Rubbish – get a taxi. For 300Rp you can save hours (and blisters), and get there before the mountains disappear behind clouds.

From the end of the road it takes an hour to reach the top, with panoramic views of the Annapurnas to the north, the sacred peak of Machhapuchhare dominating. To the south is the expanse of Phewa Tal.

Chaiya shops and the occasional food stall punctuate a parade of small villages, and the three-hour journey down provides a fascinating glimpse of rural life, including the opportunity to buy anything from pineapples to pencils.

As we approach the bottom, two parachutists land in a maze of rice paddies. A woman washes clothes in a nearby creek while a cow dies near the lake and a man lies drunk on the roadside, unaware of the 10-tonne Indian lorry passing within a few feet. That’s Nepal, all right. Total confrontation.